Tuesday, September 21, 2010

So unenthused

I am still trying to comprehend what I went through tonight. I went in expecting one thing and walked out with a totally opposite feeling. This never happened to me before.

The salesperson could have had the easiest car sale ever. Instead it was a tremendously underwhelming experience. It boggles my mind.

I am looking to replace my winter vehicle. After doing some research, I was about to settle on a Nissan Rogue. It is a crossover designed to go up against the mini SUVs like the Ford Escape, Toyota Rav4, and Honda CVX or whatever it is. After viewing many pictures online and seeing a couple of the vehicles up close, the only thing that mattered was seeing the inside and driving it around.

The car ended up being a bit smaller than I had expected. With the back seats up, there was some cargo room but not much. It reminded me of the Chrysler TC3 I had in college. Pop the seats down and had rooms to move around some big items. My concern was could it fit a snowblower or lawn mower. Mower would be no problem. The snowblower was a different story. I figure it would fit but it would need to lean down. That isn't a big deal. I can work with that. Later it would dawn on me that the difference in some of the space in the back was the sloping design; it didn't go straight up like the SUVs did.

Driving the thing was fun. It had some giddy up and go under the hood. It wasn't that loud accelerating like some reviews had said. It handled well too. After zipping around a bit, I was ready to talk about buying the vehicle. Armed with a couple of quotes they had sent me via email, I could be talking about a new car.

But the sales lady was pokey. I expected someone to point out features of the car as I looked around. To show me the neat things that make the car worth buying. She did none of that. Even as I drove it around she put the air conditioning on because she wanted it cooler in the car, not to show me how to get it on. At stop lights I was perusing the console checking out what buttons did what. She sat there silently

When we got back to the showroom I asked for a bottom line price. They had sent me prices on a base model and one with an added package of nice add ons. Nothing fancy but good enough for me to want. I didn't mention that fact to her. I let her try to get me their best price. I also mentioned a Nissan purchase program from work that was suppose to get me an even better price.

It took her 45 minutes to get me a price. That did include someone looking at my old truck and providing a lowball offer. As I walked out, I didn't even have a verified price from her. I didn't even bother to mention the lower prices in the email. It would have kept me in that dealership and I had been in there way too long for my liking.

So I am going to check with one on my side of town. Sure they run some annoying commercials but they may be enthused about selling me a car. Call me silly but I want them to want to sell me a car, not waste my time like this lady did tonight.